FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT OSHA - PAGE 5

The Reagan administration repeatedly has emasculated safety and health standards for the nation's workers and pressured inspectors into inflating performance records, a group of top federal scientists and inspectors charged Tuesday. The first extensive Senate hearings into the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since President Reagan took office in 1981 heard testimony that echoed repeated attacks by outside critics. But this time the dissenting voices came from senior employees of the agency.

A construction company employee who was rescued from a trench Monday after an accident in Bolingbrook was released from the hospital a few hours later, according to a safety consultant working with the company, Ruffalo and Sons. Officials with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating the incident, in which the employee was struck by a piece of equipment at a work site for a new subdivision. The worker was airlifted to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood after rescue crews got him out. Trenches that are more than 5 feet deep require cave-in protection.

Q. Does a company have to supply heat in its warehouse or office? On what minimum setting does an employer have to keep the thermostat? A. While state and local governments may have regulations in this area, there is no national requirement for heating the workplace. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration says that while companies don't have to legally provide heat, OSHA will listen to worker complaints if you think the lack of heat jeopardizes your health and safety.

After an uproar this month over an OSHA advisory asserting federal workplace safety rules extend to employees' homes, the agency has reversed itself, declaring it will not hold employers responsible for conditions in workers' home offices. However, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will enforce safety regulations for other kinds of work done at home, particularly piecework for manufacturers, an agency official said. In a separate action, the agency announced Thursday it is extending for an additional 30 days the public comment period on controversial workplace ergonomic standards.

Top officials of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration acknowledged to Congress Thursday that they referred to their employees as "commies." OSHA chief Robert Rowland, under fire for reputed conflicts of interest and lax enforcement of safety standards, was asked at a House hearing whether he recently told a group of the agency's top managers: "OSHA is full of commies, and I`m going to root them out and (obscenity)." Rep. Gerry Sikorski (D., Minn.)

More than one-fifth of all taxpayer dollars paid out to federal contractors goes to companies cited by federal inspectors for serious violations of workplace safety rules, according to a General Accounting Office study. Although federal agencies have the power to bar companies from receiving contracts for a variety of reasons, including workplace safety violations, the authority is "rarely exercised" to punish companies for safety violations, the GAO found. The findings will be released by Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the construction death of Aurora resident Dennis Dale Hastert, a second cousin of U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Monday in far west suburban Plano. Brad Hahn, Hastert's press secretary, said Tuesday that the speaker was "saddened to hear the news" of his cousin's death. "They have met a couple of times," Hahn said, but the two men didn't grow up together or know each other well. Dennis Dale Hastert, 62, was working at 18 W. Main St. in downtown Plano when he was run over by a Bobcat tractor about 2 p.m. Monday, according to a news release from the DuPage County coroner's office.

Federal authorities are investigating a workplace accident last week in Elk Grove Township that fatally injured a Chicago man, who died Sunday after being in a coma for several days. Saleh Atwel, 63, of the 4800 block of North Kenneth Avenue, an employee of O'Hare Precision Metals LLC, 2404 W. Hamilton Rd., was operating a machine that compresses metal Wednesday. According the Cook County Sheriff's Department, the machine was turned off to allow Atwel to tighten a part under it and the compressor switched on, snagging his jacket in the drive shaft.

Authorities Thursday were investigating the death of a worker at a Streamwood plastic packaging factory. Marco T. Arreola Jr., 26, and a father of three, was apparently trying to tend to a break in a sheet of plastic film early Wednesday when he was caught in a press at QPF, LLC, according to police and federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials. The worker's father, Marco T. Arreola Sr., said he was told his son was crushed between the machine's rollers.

A St. Charles casting company was fined $78,000 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for having unguarded machinery after an employee's hand and arm were crushed, causing him to lose parts of two fingers, in October, the agency said Thursday. Precise Castings Inc. "willfully violated federal standards" by failing to guard three hydraulic trim presses, including one that was involved in another amputation, the agency said in a statement. There have been several amputations at the company since 1999, the agency said.